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U.S. Satellite Destroyed in Space Collision
Space.com ^ | 11 February 2009 | Becky Iannotta and Tariq Malik

Posted on 02/12/2009 5:40:00 AM PST by Freeport

WASHINGTON - Iridium Satellite LLC confirmed today that one of its satellites was destroyed Tuesday in an unprecedented collision with a spent Russian satellite and that the incident could result in limited disruptions of service.

According to an e-mail alert issued by NASA today, Russia's Cosmos 2251 satellite slammed into the Iridium craft at 11:55 a.m. EST (0455 GMT) over Siberia at an altitude of 490 miles (790 km). The incident was observed by the U.S. Defense Department's Space Surveillance Network, which later was tracking two large clouds of debris.

"This is the first time we've ever had two intact spacecraft accidentally run into each other," said Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist of NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It was a bad day for both of them."

The collision appears to be the worst space debris event since China intentionally destroyed one of its aging weather satellites during a 2007 anti-satellite test, Johnson told SPACE.com. That 2007 event has since left about 2,500 pieces of debris in Earth orbit, but more time is needed to pin down the extent of Tuesday's satellite collision, he added.

(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; Russia
KEYWORDS: collision; cosmos2251; iridium; satellite
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To: pfflier

Go to the Gettysburg battlefield and there are several musket balls that collided, on display.


If we calculated how many shots were fired on similar trajectories in an area of a certain number of acres, we’d find the air over Gettysburg was thick with bullets compared to the vast emptiness of low earth orbit.


41 posted on 02/12/2009 7:07:14 AM PST by Atlas Sneezed
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To: pfflier; Virginia Ridgerunner
I share your pessimism that it did happen accidentally, especially in consideration of Russia's new belligerence and their use of cyber attacks against Georgia.

I have trouble believing that Russia could pull this off on purpose, from a technical perspective.

Plus, the risk of a series of chain reaction collisions destroying basically all low earth orbit satellites would seem to me a reason that Russia would not do this even if they could.

If we had to start the satellite competion again from scratch, Russia would have no chance of keeping up with the US or China.

42 posted on 02/12/2009 7:15:27 AM PST by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: TChris
...which is demonstrably false.

Well I agree that is hooey, but you'd need an infinite number of monkeys and/or time to demonstrate it. I think that is why God gave us the power to reason, instead of a calculator.

43 posted on 02/12/2009 7:16:43 AM PST by SampleMan (Community Organizer: What liberals do when they run out of college, before they run out of Marxism.)
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To: KarlInOhio
Cosmos 2251 was launched in 1992 and quit communicating about 10 years ago.
44 posted on 02/12/2009 7:17:22 AM PST by MilspecRob (Most people don't act stupid, they really are.)
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To: dead

I dunno...traditionally, Russian physicists, mathematicians, engineers have always been some of the best in the world, going all the way back to the 19th century.


45 posted on 02/12/2009 7:17:55 AM PST by Virginia Ridgerunner (Sarah Palin is a smart missile aimed at the heart of the left!)
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To: SampleMan
Well I agree that is hooey, but you'd need an infinite number of monkeys and/or time to demonstrate it. I think that is why God gave us the power to reason, instead of a calculator.

...and typewriters that never malfunction.

...and ribbons that never run out of ink.

...and monkeys that live forever.

...and monkeys that feel like typing instead of doing what monkeys do.

...and you count each individual "Shakesperean" word, not really expecting them to be in order.

...etc.

It's a platitude spoken as a truism.

46 posted on 02/12/2009 7:22:29 AM PST by TChris (So many useful idiots...)
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To: TChris

Well, of course with enough time a monkey would randomly fix the broken typewriter, change the ink ribbons, and create more monkeys to do the same.

Come on, its all in the math ;-)


47 posted on 02/12/2009 7:27:17 AM PST by SampleMan (Community Organizer: What liberals do when they run out of college, before they run out of Marxism.)
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner
I dunno...traditionally, Russian physicists, mathematicians, engineers have always been some of the best in the world, going all the way back to the 19th century.

I agree completely. I was thinking more of their nation's crappy economic state, and the resulting deterioration of their space program.

I mean, we've spent countless billions developing technology to try to pull this off, and we're still only OK at it ourselves. I don't know that some gaggle of Russian geniuses could slap it together on the technological cheap.

48 posted on 02/12/2009 7:27:24 AM PST by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: The_Victor
Accident?

Almost certainly an accident.

49 posted on 02/12/2009 7:28:34 AM PST by r9etb
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To: dead
If we had to start the satellite competion again from scratch, Russia would have no chance of keeping up with the US or China.

You're wrong there. Even now, the Russians have by far the greatest space launch capacity of any space-faring nation.

50 posted on 02/12/2009 7:30:17 AM PST by r9etb
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To: MilspecRob

The Russian craft apparently was non-maneuverable.

From the main Space.com article at the top...

The 1,234-pound (560-kg) Iridium 33 satellite involved in the collision was launched in 1997; the 1,984-pound (900-kg) Russian satellite was launched in 1993 and presumed non-operational. It did not have a maneuvering system, NASA said.

http://www.space.com/news/090211-satellite-collision.html


51 posted on 02/12/2009 7:32:20 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: ETL

If the Russians knew that their satellite was going to decay or its orbit changed, and then the collision occurred, wouldn’t Russia be held responsible in some court for malfeasance. I grant you that a clean up is impossible, but there is something quite wrong with business.


52 posted on 02/12/2009 7:34:16 AM PST by Melchior
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To: ETL

If the Russians knew that their satellite was going to decay or its orbit changed, and then the collision occurred, wouldn’t Russia be held responsible in some court for malfeasance. I grant you that a clean up is impossible, but there is something quite wrong with business.


53 posted on 02/12/2009 7:34:19 AM PST by Melchior
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To: r9etb
Yes, they can lift things heavy things very well, but can they build the cutting edge, technologically advanced satellites really worth lifting?

Or are they going to chuck a bunch of 2002-caliber satellites up there?

54 posted on 02/12/2009 7:34:52 AM PST by dead (I've got my eye out for Mullah Omar.)
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To: TChris
It's a platitude spoken as a truism.

No, it's an analogy that you are taking literally and it is perfectly true. An infinite iteration of chance would indeed accomplish this.

55 posted on 02/12/2009 7:38:20 AM PST by BlueMondaySkipper (Involuntarily subsidizing the parasite class since 1981)
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To: Melchior

The fact that the collision occurred over Siberia also makes this suspicious.


56 posted on 02/12/2009 7:40:31 AM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: SampleMan

“We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.” Robert Wilensky, April 1999.

One of my personal favorites.


57 posted on 02/12/2009 7:41:26 AM PST by MrNeutron1962
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To: Freeport

If I remember correctly, Iridium has very close ties to the bin Laden family.


58 posted on 02/12/2009 7:45:33 AM PST by Perchant
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To: dead
Yes, they can lift things heavy things very well, but can they build the cutting edge, technologically advanced satellites really worth lifting? Or are they going to chuck a bunch of 2002-caliber satellites up there?

The state of technology has little to do with it. The Russian philosophy has always been "good enough to get the job done, and not much more."

If you want to talk about re-creating a satellite capability, the Russians are probably in the best position to do so.

The Russians built their massive spacelift capability precisely because they didn't have the same technology as us -- they made up for their technological shortcomings by being able to build and launch more, less-capable satellites instead.

In the process, they essentially wrote the book on space station operations, unmanned rendezvous, quick-turnaround low-cost launch, satellite mass-production, and many other impressive achievements.

59 posted on 02/12/2009 7:52:20 AM PST by r9etb
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To: ETL

60 posted on 02/12/2009 7:52:56 AM PST by bmwcyle (I have no President as of Jan 20th 2009. No Congress either.)
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